Hot on the heels of their popular free desktop release, Novell is unleashing their professional-grade desktop on the world this summer in the form of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 (SLED 10 to the techies. They like their acronyms), and all signs point to it being one hell of a release… according to the feature-set alone. It will be the first commercially offered desktop distro to offer XGL as an option, as well as including applications for remote desktop and published apps, VPN, multimedia apps (with working MP3 playback out of the box), Macromedia Flash, Sun Java, VoIP client, and Beagle desktop search to name just a few. The full listing follows, but if you give me a few minutes of your time I will take you on a journey through this fine desktop and let you decide for yourself if lightning is actually capable of striking twice.

It's not something impressive . Just the next distro with the same graphical look a little bit polished.

I am using Linux since 1999 and it is my only operating system at home since 2003.

I am writing this post using Firefox as a browser , KDE as desktop manager and the release is Fedora Core 5.

Most linux distros are fully customizable,so the new SUSE just has a new skin

The effort Novell has gone through with integration (take beagle for example) is what I'm impressed with. It isn't "ducktaped" together. They have indeed taken their time with the desktop. For that I commend them.

As for me personally I started around 1997 with Slackware 3.5. Today I run Gentoo on KDE3.5.3/XGL/compiz-quinnstorm that isn't reconisable until you look closer at the icons. VMware takes care of the need for Windows.

I am using this system too, it appears to have everything. But I don't seem able to play video clips (mpegs). Still having trouble installing software too, however YaST2 is prety good for finding a multitude of new patches.

Advice on using this system after always using windows xp, would be apreciated.

1. Add Guru and packman respositories.
2. Install win32codecs
3. If you use media applications that use xine-lib such as amaroK (using the xine engine) and Kaffiene you will need to reinstall Xine from those repositories.

_only_ install the media packages and nothing else, as SLED10 is different from normal OpenSuSE. do _not_ update your system from these respositories until a SLED10 respository is available.

A while ago, my good friend Guy Lunardi, also SLED10 product manager, corrected me about the artist formerly known as Xgl. telling me that in SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10, the user interfaces all say “Desktop Effects.”

Hmmm…it turns out that the name did indeed change in SLED10. I think it’s a sound decision on the SLED10 team’s part. While many of us in the Linux community have been avidly following Xgl since it’s re-emergence in January of 2006, the term “Xgl” doesn’t provide newcomers any clue as to what it does. It’s not a descriptive name. Certainly “Desktop Effects” is better. It isn’t perfect, but it’s probably good enough.

I have found that many Xgl-knowledgeable people are having trouble setting up Desktop Effects because they try to do the same setup as they used on early SLED10 betas and on SUSE Linux 10.1 (or Ubuntu, or Gentoo, or…) Ironic that people are messing up because they’re too experienced, methinks. They go about it the hard way.

Novell has made setting up Desktop Effects a no-brainer in SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10. Now you go to the Control Center through the Main Menu, and select the Desktop Effects icon (as shown on this blog post above; notice that it pays tribute to the Xgl underneath the covers).

That is just sweet, I am having so many problems getting the fglrx driver to work on Suse 10.1... I thought it would be easy, it was easy on Suse 10.0 but on Suse 10.1 it crashed when it loaded it up...

When you say "everything just works right out of the box.." you mean you can play embedded media files, wmv material, audio and video playing capabilities etc all just as it is?"

I am using Xandros 4 now, but didn't purchase the network stuff. It is better then 3, but still has the same problems or issues...

Here is a review http://tinyurl.com/ke5lh that I found that pretty much sums up my thoughts. I found it I'll add while trying to figure out how to get Xandros 4 to play WMVs and embedded media clips. I am able to play dvd's, just not like you would on a DVD player. It just opens up the dvds files and you have to click on them all until you figure out which ones are files that play and which that don't. Kinda frustrating and I worry that I'll mess it up soemhow doing such...Flash doesn't work either in it "out of the box".

I did get Ubuntu, but when trying to hear SF Radio it didn't work and I wanted to hear it without spending an hour or more trying to get it to work. So, I re-installed xandros 4 as knew that out of the box it would at least play SF radio with its real player which isn't the greatest thing to play audio shows with as it don't tell ya what's being played like song titles etc. The Music Manager on Xandros 4 is pretty good though and I like it. It just doesn't play everything.